MISD auxiliary staffing situation is mixed bag

Published 6:00 pm, Saturday, March 7, 2009

The employment picture for Midland ISD auxiliary personnel could be compared to the Dickens line: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."

For Child Nutrition Services Director Patricia Mouser it is the best, but for Director of Transportation Services Willie Tarleton, it could be considered the worst.

"We are seeing the best job market for hiring that we have seen in three years," Mouser said.

Child Nutrition Services has 250 budgeted positions and is technically at full staff. "We have enough of our pool of floaters to cover every position," she said. "We've changed a little bit of our staffing so instead of hiring substitute employees to work as needed, we changed that floater position two or three years ago. A floater is a regular position with full benefits and six hours a day guaranteed."

Mouser said she would like to have 20 excess positions so vacancies and absences or illnesses can be covered. "If people are looking for work, we've got a very stable job environment with wonderful benefits and we'd like to hire - if we could - 20 additional floaters. That becomes our hiring pool as vacancies occur" at campuses, she said.

Entry-level floaters make $8.02 per hour. "We found that $8 and up is a competitive wage, particularly in regard to benefits. MISD is one of few districts that pays 100 percent of health benefits," Mouser said.

On the bus driver and monitor end, transportation was 54 people short in January. Of that figure, 23 are bus driver spots and 31 are monitors, according to figures from Director of Auxiliary Personnel Becky Espino. February figures show transportation is 50 people short. This includes 20 drivers and 29 monitors.

"We're still significantly short," Tarleton said. "We're getting some interest. We've picked up three or four people last couple of weeks. We are not at a capacity where I can spell relief at all."

Tarleton said the only hope he has is if, as the economy changes, people begin looking for work and "we might get lucky. We haven't been able to sit down and figure out a strategy that would attract potential employees."

One thing that might help in the long run is the addition of Assistant Transportation Director Mike Almuina, who started in February. Tarleton said he has been in the charter and school bus contracting business.

His salary is $75,000 annually and his job is to supervise and manage driver training and assignments, regular and special needs bus routing, the drug and alcohol testing program, help develop and manage the department budget and direct and manage the school bus fleet, Espino said.

Tarleton said drivers are hard to keep because once they obtain a commercial driver's license with an "S" endorsement for school buses, they can work for trucking firms, which can pay more than the $9.95 per hour for entry-level drivers. Monitors at the entry level make $7.85 hourly.

"Monitors are a double-edged sword. When they come to work for us, they're not looking for the type of employment where they plan to be around for a long period of time. It's a stepping stone for other jobs. A lot of times we end up hiring people that have a lot of skills, who may have had office experience or come from the medical field," Tarleton said. When those jobs open back up, those people take them.